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From a next-gen EV charger to the top eco-volunteer vacations, here are your weekly links from around the web.

Plug and play: The Yves Behar-designed GE WattStation will juice up electric vehicles and spruce up the streets. Oh, the humanity! When Humans Ruled the Earth explores the human consumption machine in animated form. An efficient water solution in the rural West: Farmers and ranchers are replacing windmills with solar power wells. Want to take an exotic holiday AND help the environment? Try one......read more

Now, this is getting space-agey. The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency says it has put solar panels on a spacecraft, which not only create power but they actively propel and maneuver it through space. The "Ikaros" solar sail absorbs photons from the sun that put pressure onto the solar sails reflective panels and propel the 700 pound craft. Ikaros is bound for an orbit around......read more

Turns out that large-scale clean energy projects don't have to be ugly eyesores. The mirage-like Light Sanctuary, a desert sculpture that does double duty as a 5,000 megawatt solar energy facility, proves it. Designed by New York architects Decker Yeadon for a remote area near Dubai, Light Sanctuary's 25-mile array of photovoltaic panels form a wavelike structure that undulates through......read more

And so on, and so on, and so on: Zoom in on National Geographic's infinite National Parks photo, which reveals hundreds of pics making up each original. The magic box: Trunz Water Systems' portable, solar/wind-powered water filtration unit is the next level of disaster relief. (via Core77) Oh, super. Wired tells us about new research showing that the plastic garbage patch in the North......read more

Mojave Desert facility will be California's first solar thermal project in two decades.

The California Energy Commission has approved the Beacon Solar Energy project in the Mojave Desert, making it the first solar thermal farm regulators have permitted in twenty years. The $1 billion, 250-megawatt facility will be built and managed by NextEra Energy Resources. The Beacon project covers over 2,000 acres of private land in Kern County, California, where long rows of curved mirrors......read more

Nation's first energy storage bill passed by the California Legislature.

The California Legislature has passed the nation's first energy storage bill, an important step in spurring the development of renewable energy projects. Energy storage is considered vital for renewable energy development because of the intermittant nature of wind and solar power. It allows utility companies to store renewable energy then utilize it later when demand is high. For example,......read more

Government announces plans to install solar panels at the White House.

Last month, Bill McKibben (author of "Eaarth") and 350.org tried to get solar panels installed on the White House. They were quietly rebuffed by the White House and we thought that was it. Not so. Yesterday the Department of Energy announced that solar panels and a solar water heater will be installed at the presidential mansion by next spring. The announcement, which comes just in......read more

Researchers at Stanford University may have reached a breakthrough in their efforts to improve solar efficiency and affordability. According to Stanford University News, the scientists discovered that "by properly configuring the thicknesses of several thin layers of films, an organic polymer thin film could absorb as much as 10 times more energy from sunlight than was thought......read more

1366 Technologies raises $20 million to fund a cheaper path to solar power.

By finding a simpler way to produce silicon wafers — the building block of solar cells — 1366 Technologies is set to revolutionize the solar energy game. The Lexington, Mass. company has raised $20 million to commercialize a technique that it says will cut the cost of solar panels by 40 percent. Typically, solar panels are manufactured by sawing large sheets of silicon into silicon wafers,......read more

South Africa has released plans to establish a solar power plant that would become the largest in the world. The project aims to go partially online by 2012, at which point it would produce 1 GW of energy for the national grid. Within ten years it plans to achieve annual output of 5 GW, which would meet one-tenth of the country's energy demands. This is a wonderful piece of news from a......read more